Suma bustled about the chamber, drawing the curtains. Then she brushed Neela’s long hair until it gleamed. As she finished, a servant arrived with the walrus milk and a platter of sweets.
“Rest now, Princess,” she said. “Soon the learned Kiraat will come and put you to rights.”
Neela forced a smile. She stretched out on a soft tufted chaise. Suma smoothed a sea-silk throw over her, then left, quietly closing the door.
As soon as it clicked shut, Neela threw off her cover. She swam to her closet and got her messenger bag down from a shelf. The transparensea pebbles Vr?ja had given her were still in it. She put some currensea into the bag, along with her black swashbuckler’s outfit and a few more pieces of clothing.
Her anger hadn’t abated any; it had only grown. Drink walrus milk? Eat sweets? Rest? Hardly! She was going to sneak out and head for Cerulea.
She took a transparensea pebble from her bag. She would cast it, then make her way out of the palace. But were there guards outside in the hallway? If so, they would see her door open and close. She would have to check.
Neela grasped the doorknob and turned it, but nothing happened. The door wouldn’t open.
Suma had locked her in.
THE UNDERWATER ENTRANCE to the duca’s palazzo was shrouded in darkness. The lava globes flanking the tall double doors had gone out. The carved stone faces were silent.
Serafina knocked on one of the doors. It swung open at her touch. That’s odd, she thought. Why isn’t it locked?
She looked up and down the current, feeling uneasy. Here and there, a shadowy figure came or went, but most of the palazzos were locked up tight, their windows shuttered. The Lagoon looked very different from the last time she’d been here.
Serafina looked different, too. Swimming for weeks on end had made her body lean and taut. Her cheekbones were sharper under her skin. Her clothing was frayed and silt-stained. She was getting the hard, rangy look of a merl who’d been on the currents too long.
She’d left Ling a week ago and swum west to the Mediterranean, then north to the Adriatic, sticking to lonely back currents the whole way. She knew that returning to Cerulea would be extremely dangerous. Before she attempted it, she wanted to get as much information as she could from the duca on the number of troops still in the city and the locations of any safe houses. She hoped he might have news of her family, too. Of the Matalis. And of Blu.
“Hello?” she called out, swimming through the doorway. “Is anyone here? Blu? Grigio?”
No one answered. She moved down the hallway warily. Her fins started to prickle. As soon as she broke the surface of the duca’s pool, she knew something was seriously wrong. It was dark inside the library. There were no lamps lit, no fire blazing. She hoisted herself up on the edge of the pool, and cut her palm on a shard of broken glass.
“Ouch!” she yelped, shaking her hand. “Duca Armando?” she called out. “Are you here?”
There was no answer. A dozen or so bioluminescent jellyfish were floating in the pool. She cast an illuminata over them and they lit up brightly. In their blue glow, she could see the library properly. She gasped as her eyes traveled over the broken statues and slashed paintings. Bookshelves had been pulled over and their contents trampled. Furniture had been smashed.
Suddenly, she heard footsteps. They were coming fast. Something swished through the air over her head. She flipped backward into the pool. When she surfaced, she saw a pan floating on the water and a terrified woman standing at its edge.
“Filomena? It’s me, Serafina!”
“Oh, mio Dio! Che cosa ho fatto? Mi dispiace tanto!” Filomena said tearfully.
“You’re talking too fast. I can’t understand you. Do you speak Mermish?”
Filomena nodded. “Forgive me, Principessa,” she said, her voice halting and uncertain. “I no see it was you. I think Traho and his soldiers come again.” She began to cry. “The duca, he is dead. Oh, Principessa, he is dead.” She sat down heavily.
“No!” Serafina cried. With shaking arms she pushed herself out of the water and sat on the pool’s edge, next to Filomena.
“It happen the night you and the Princess Neela are here,” Filomena said. “The men who came…the humans…they torture him. Then they kill him.”
Sera was stricken by guilt. “It was because of us, wasn’t it?” she said. “Neela and me. The duca died because of us.”
Filomena shook her head. “No, child. They know you escape and still they kill him. They want information. They think the duca have it.”
The talismans, Serafina thought.
“Please, Filomena, it’s very important,” Serafina said as gently as she could. “The men who came here, did you hear what they said?”
Filomena pressed the heels of her hands against her brow, as if she’d like to pound the memories out of her brain. “The one man…he have sunglasses,” she said.
“Rafe Mfeme,” Serafina said.
“Yes. He shout at the duca. Same thing, over and over. He beat him…an old man, a gentle man…” She dissolved into tears again.